My current comicy art project is just grinding me down, and looking at the top art posts is making me feel bad whilst simultaneously not giving me any inspiration, but I still want to contribute stuff (that isn’t battlefluffs related). To that end, I’ve dug out a written piece I started about 4 months ago and never did anything with. Fair warning - I haven’t done any creative writing going on about 9 and a half years, so quality not guaranteed.
You are Scott – 27, single, and currently pulling up outside your job as a fluffy breeder slash caretaker slash all-the-other-shit-that-needs-doing-er, at your local ColorLine Breeders, inc factory.
Normally you’d arrive at around half-eight, but you’re an hour ahead of schedule as you pull up today, with a sore throat and one hell of a thumping headache. Some asshole wound up in hospital after hitting a pothole on the main road to work, and now the council have decided to use their power to make everything as inconvenient for everyone as possible. They say the road will be fixed in two weeks, so naturally you’re prepared for about two months of dragging yourself out of bed at half-six every morning for another day in paradise. It’s either that, or you get up at your normal time and experience the purgatorial nightmare that is rush hour traffic on country roads that are only meant to accommodate a car and a half at their widest, consigning yourself to the black hole of honking horns and congestion-fuelled despair.
You’ll stick with waking up an hour earlier, thanks.
The factory towers over you as you head over to the staff entrance, a utilitarian monolith of concrete and steel, built in monument to the twin gods of industry and profit. Thousands of meters of lifeless grey walls, cold and forbidding, looking as much like a prison as it does a mill. There are no windows that you can see from your position at the base of the structure, no way for natural illumination to enter. Inside, light is a luxury, not a right, something that can be taken away just as easily as it is given.
The thought crosses your mind that perhaps these facilities would be more efficient if the corporations in charge didn’t go out of their way to paintstakingly craft an aura of soul-crushing dread.
Lost in thought, you swipe your lanyard across the card reader, opening the electronic lock and allowing you to enter the spartan staffroom. There’s just enough here to keep you and the other employees happy; a storage cupboard, a pair of coffee machines and a water cooler, a couple of fridges in a small kitchen, a few chairs and a single, ratty couch make up the extent of the amenities provided. There’s an unspoken rule that, whatever else you do here, you keep this room clean. This is your holy ground, a place of sanctuary, and it’ll damn well stay that way.
Immediately upon entering you head over to the kitchen, setting the coffee machine to pour you a cup while you pull one of about a thousand sets of overalls that are kept hanging in the storage cupboard. Folks learned early on that you can never have too many spare clothes when dealing with fluffies. They’re all coated in shit to some degree, but it beats getting it on your actual clothes. Besides, after all the time you’ve spent working here, you’ve almost gotten used to the smell.
Emphasis on the ‘almost’.
Phil, the elderly night watchman, is lounging in a chair, idly watching the camera system that monitors all the different rooms throughout the building. You offer to grab him a coffee as well, but he politely declines. Once you’re set up, he wants to get gone nice and early – his wife’s been having some back troubles lately, and he needs to be there for her as much as possible. Before he leaves, he gives you a quick run down of the night’s events – fortunately, there’s nothing hugely noteworthy. Most exciting thing that happened is that one of the studs, number four, got a bit pent up, decided that number nine would make a good enfie toy. Naturally, the poor bastard screaming and crying as he was taken to pound town gave the whole thing away, so now the rapist is enjoying a day in the sorry box, with a quadruple amputation scheduled for the afternoon, whilst the victim is crying in the corner of his pen, probably wondering why no-one is coming to comfort him. Ah well, Nine’s new here, he’ll learn how things work soon enough. As usual with issues such as this, you are profoundly unmoved; It’s amazing how quickly you get desensitized to the worst of fluffy behaviour when you’re experiencing it day in and day out. It gets easier when you remind yourself that at the end of the day, they’re just toys, and some of those toys happen to be defective. With how many there are, it’s just a numbers game.
With that business out of the way, you make small talk with Phil for a little while, enjoying your coffee and listening to the old geezer ramble on about this and that, before he eventually packs up and heads out at 7:45. No-one else is likely to show up for another 45 minutes or so, so you decide to make a head-start on the day’s tasks.
After taking a moment to observe the cameras, hearing a whole lot of gurgling and snoring, and a little bit of crying, you head out of the door and into the hallway, swiping one of the pagers as you leave. In one of the few good ideas anyone working here has ever had, someone higher up on the totem pole, guy called Marcus, insisted that all the pregnant mares be fitted with a heartbeat monitor. If they exceed a certain level, usually because they’re about to give birth, you’ll get a notification, and you damn well better stop what you’re doing and get over there ASAP.
Like most competent folk, Marcus hasn’t stuck around.
Speaking of pregnant mares, that’s your first order of business, and that means you need to head to the storeroom. Since you’re the first guy in, none of the lights are on yet – every five steps or so, you hear the telltale hum of a fluorescent tube flickering into life above you, filling the air with that ubiquitous buzz. It doesn’t take long to reach the storeroom where you keep the food and other supplies necessary for raising fluffies – everything’s designed to be as conveniently located for you workers as possible, in order to minimize any possible downtime you might have.
Grabbing a trolley, you take a moment to dig through the various bags of kibble, looking for one that’s already opened. The only stuff you stock is the cheap-as-chips no name rubbish that apparently tastes like rancid shit with the texture of cardboard. You wonder if someone made it like that as a joke. Or, alternatively, perhaps it just is rancid shit, probably with bits of dead fluffy mixed in. Honestly, neither answer would surprise you.
Eventually, you find an already-opened bag, still slightly more than half full. Hefting it onto your trolley, you wheel it out the door and head straight across the hallway to a room opposite – The expectant mother room. With a swipe of your lanyard, the electronic lock disengages, and a gentle push sends the door scraping open as you roll in. Inside, the room is in near pitch darkness, the dull
red glow of the nightlights in each cage the only illumination. One of the few concessions you were able to get from management, when it was pointed out how much time would be saved not having to wade through shit and spend 30 minutes every morning beating the mares until they stopped screaming about the ‘dawk munstahs’. Some of them still cry, but at least they keep it relatively quiet.
The room is comprised of row upon row of tables, upon each of which sits a dozen tiny cages, just barely large enough to hold a soon-mummah. Each cage is constructed from metal wire mesh, strong enough to prevent any hope of escape, whilst simultaneously allowing no privacy. The floor of each cage is covered in a thin layer of straw, the bare minimum insulation required to keep them alive and not an inch more. As with most things fluffy, it’s also usually covered in shit. Most of it falls to the ground below, where channels cut into the concrete floor carry it down into a septic tank (which you have now decided probably is where the kibble comes from), but naturally some gets caught in their fluff and the surrounding bedding. You’re not totally heartless, though – once a week, you take a hose and blast them clean, and even replace the bedding that gets washed away, too! Unfortunately, the mares tend not to appreciate your magnanimity, shrieking constantly about how ‘Wawa bad fo’ fwuffy!”, but fortunately, you’re not losing much sleep over the concerns of mentally deficient biotoys.
Water is automatically piped into the hamster bottles that adorn every cage, so your only responsibilities are feeding them and updating the chart at the entrance with anything noteworthy. Unlike some of your colleagues, who take a degree of sadistic pleasure in venting their frustrations on the mares, shaking their cages and shouting obscenities, you’re content to simply do your job quickly and efficiently. You don’t like fluffies, but you see no reason to antagonize them further. However much you may hate your job, at the end of the day, at least you’ve got it better than them.
Taking a moment to look over the chart, you check to see which fluffies are expecting imminently. Fortunately, there’s only one today; number eleven, a black mare with white dappling, slightly overdue at six weeks and two days. Not yet a matter for concern. What IS a matter for concern, however, is the fact that this Eleven’s first pregnancy, and that’s almost always the most problematic. They never react well to having their foals taken away the first time. Well, to be perfectly honest, they never react well full stop, but after a while their reactions tend to be along the lines of catatonic despair, whereas early on they generally resort to throwing a tantrum and shitting everywhere, which means you have to discipline them, clean them out, and it’s just work work work work work.
There’s also a little bit of you that feels like maybe, just maybe, it’s unreasonable to discipline a new mother for getting upset that you’re taking away her babies, because she doesn’t trust you and thinks she knows best – and to be perfectly honest, she’s right. Statistically, at least two of her babies are going to be competing for the world record in getting their necks snapped, all for the unforgivable sin of being born ugly.
Just a little bit of you feels that way, though; the rest of you thinks that if a toy comes out defective, you discard it and make a new one. Well, on the bright side, at least you probably won’t have to deal with it until later today. Maybe if you’re lucky, it’ll happen when you’re on break, and then it’s someone else’s probl-
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEE! BIGGEST POOPIES!”
If God is out there, he has a funny sense of humour. With a muttered curse, you turn on the main lights which, combined with the Eleven’s piercing screech, swiftly rouses the rest of the soon-mummahs from their slumber. Within moments your ears are assaulted by a plethora of sounds – crying, screaming, begging for attention – all combining to create a uniquely awful cacophony that wouldn’t sound out of place at a Merzbow concert. Gritting your teeth, you grab a foal carrier and a disposal bucket from near the entrance and move along the aisles until you reach Eleven. She’s panting and straining as you arrive, her cheek fluff already damp and stained with tears. She looks up at you, watery eyes begging for some sort of comfort, any reprieve from the pain. Naturally, you ignore her, moving around the back to unlatch the cage so you can grab the foals as soon as they hit the ground.
“Pwease babbehs, nu huwt mummah!” the mare begs, before spasming as her body is wracked by more contractions. Slowly, surely, a tiny head begins to poke out from her birth canal, followed by a pair of legs, then suddenly the whole thing flops out with a little splat. You waste no time in picking it up, heedless of the liquid gunk covering its fluff as you hold it up to the light to inspect its colours, prompting a series of startled chirps. A black and white earthie, like its mother, only this one has little stripes running down its body like a zebra – definitely a keeper. A quick check between its legs tells you that it’s a filly, and then she’s gone, gently dumped into the foal carrier to be ignored for now, whilst she chirps for a mother she’ll never know.
“Wu…whewe babbeh? …nee’ mummah…” Eleven says, voice weak, before another screech is torn from her as the second foal begins to crown. You don’t bother answering her. They never understand. The second foal is another catch – a pegasus colt. black and neon yellow, like hazard tape, or a bee. You’ll need to make a note of this on the chart; even if the rest of her brood is worthless, these two patterns alone have ensured her value.
The third has already slid out before you’ve finished checking the second. She’s another earthie, this one plain red with yellow hoofpads. This is a tricky one – she’s not necessarily one of the automatic euthanasia colours, but she’s certainly nothing special…
Ah, screw it, you’re feeling generous today. Into the carrier she goes. You even take the care to put the three babies next to each other, allowing them to haphazardly flop into am approximation of a fluff pile, cheeping in fear and confusion. That fluffpile is probably the only bit of comfort they’ll ever have in this place.
The fourth, on the other hand…you don’t even wait for it to finish leaving its mother before you give its head a flick, snapping the shit-brown foal’s neck before it could even take its first breath. Considering the way some of your colleagues like to dispose of the undesirables, your method of execution is downright merciful.
The fifth, and most likely last, is taking its sweet time, reducing Eleven to pathetic whimpers as she begs for relief. Finally, after about two minutes of pushing, the foal plops out, landing in the puddle of amniotic fluids with a startled “Cheep!” At a glance, it looks to be a charming dehydrated piss yellow, and you swiftly move to snap its neck. As you do, however, a subtle tilt of your hand causes the light to strike the foal at a different angle, revealing a silvery shimmer around the edges of its fluff. A God-damn honest-to-God iridescent. Now, even as someone who has no love for fluffies, you appreciate the value you’re holding in your hands here. This little…filly, as it happens, is probably worth more than the rest of the foals put together, multiplied by a factor of ten. Hell, even a shit-brown foal with an iridescent coat like this would be worth its weight in…well, maybe not gold, but at least something relatively valuable, like copper wiring, if only as a breeder. Speaking of which, if anyone asks, you definitely checked that brown foal before snapping its neck. Either way, it’s going straight into the incinerator before anyone has a chance to check.
Well, in the end, turns out Eleven beat the odds – four out of five is a damn good rate, even if you were a touch generous with the third, and with this quality of foal, she can look forward to a long and fulfilling career as a ColorLine Inc. breeding mare. Well, fulfilling in the sense that she will spend most of her life being filled with babies, babies that she will never see, or feed, or hug, or do any of those things that would require even an iota of kindness to exist within these walls.
When you put it like that, it sounds quite a bit like torture. Not for the first time, you think about just how much being a fluffy must suck.
Well, you can’t just stand around all day ruminating on the cruel reality that is a fluffy’s existence. These babies need to be fed and stuck in an incubator before they freeze or starve to death. As you pick up the two buckets and prepare to leave, Eleven recovers from her ordeal enough to rise to her feet, turning to look for her babies. For a moment, a look of confusion crosses her face, before swiftly morphing into unadulterated panic. “Whu…babbehs? Babbehs, cum tu mummah! Babbehs nee’ miwkies an’ hugs! Babbehs? BABBEHS! SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
You know you can’t give them their foals. The mares are too unpredictable, too prone to preferential treatment, or playing too rough and hurting their babies. Some mares, most even, are perfectly capable of looking after their babies properly, but those few that aren’t make it simply not worth the risk. Even so, it’s times like this, seeing a new mother in hysterics because she can’t find her babies…it’s enough to cause a pang of guilt, however small.
“Listen to me.” You say, bending down so you can look the distraught mare in her eyes. “I have to take your babies away. I promise you that I’m not going to hurt them. We need to take them away so that we can make them the best fluffies possible, so they can get good homes. You want your babies to have good mummahs and daddehs, right?”
“Bu…bu’ babbehs am too widdle! Nee’ mummah’s miwkies! Nee’ wub an’ huggies su dey gwow up big 'an haf heawt-happies!” She protests, desperation written upon her face.
“We’ll give them milk, and…hugs, and love.” You reply. Only two thirds of that statement are a lie. “But if you try to fight, your babies will get hurt, or turn into bad babies, and then they won’t get any love or hugs, just hurties. You don’t want that to happen to your babies, do you? You don’t want to be a bad mummah for your babies, right?”
Even the most ham-fisted emotional manipulation may as well be a deception worthy of Machiavelli himself when dealing with fluffies, with only the most jaded and abused capable of seeing through such blatant manipulation. With a final, mournful look towards where her babies should have been, then towards the bucket where their chirps have finally begun to die down, she hangs her head and gives a final hoarse whisper. “huu-huu…Otay…Ewebun be gud mummah fo’ babbehs…wub babbehs su much…wan’ babbehs to haf gud housies…huu…”
“Good girl.” You murmur, reaching into the cage to give her a gentle scratch behind her ears. “I’ll make sure your babies go to good homes.”
Of course, you can’t promise that – you learned a long time ago that those kind of guarantees rarely work out the way you’d like. The red one might get culled down the line, or they might not sell and end up in the incinerator, or maybe some abuser will buy them all for a bit of light entertainment. But, for the time being, Eleven can latch onto that belief you’ve given her, that desperate hope that one day, her babies will have the happy life she never will. It’ll tide her over, for a time at least. Eventually she’ll break, just like all the others.
It’s times like this that you have to remind yourself that fluffies are just children’s toys, synthetic beings with synthetic emotions. Advanced programs, and nothing more. After all, if they were real creatures you were working with, creatures that had real feelings, real hopes, real dreams…
Well, given the things you put them through, you might just break with them.
If you’ve made it to the end of this, and noticed any spelling/grammar/continuity issues, please scream really loudly at me and I’ll do my best to rectify it/them posthaste.
